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“What are you looking at, boy?” he said to Chops as he passed.
“I’m looking at you,” Chops said.
Stokely had gone by him but turned around and slapped Chops across the back of his head. Then he stepped backward through the door, staring at Chops with a smirk.
It was a few moments before either of them spoke.
“Did you see that shit?” Chops said.
“Yeah, he hit you,” Harry said. “You should tell Lester. Stokely’s not supposed to be in the kitchen.”
“No, not that. He didn’t hit you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So that never happens. All he does is look for fights. I think he’s afraid of you, Harry.”
“I don’t think he’s afraid of anything. He’s king.”
“Fuck him. I don’t know what you did, but he was afraid. You got something that’s scary. He saw it, man.”
Harry didn’t want to hear any more about it. He turned up the volume on the radio and both boys listened silently as the Dodgers got the last three outs and won the game.
15
BOSCH CHECKED HIS phone after leaving the memory-care center. He saw that he had missed a call from Renée Ballard. There was no message, so he called her back. When she answered, he could tell she was in a moving vehicle.
“Harry, we’re good to go on Talbot.”
“The DA signed off?”
“Yep. They said the question about the bug in the car will likely go to appeal, but they believe we’ll prevail. Meantime, they’ll be charged.”
“They?”
“Oh, yeah, we’re going to take both husband and wife down. See if we get the wife to flip. If she does, we might not even need the stuff from the wire.”
“No spousal privilege in murder.”
“Exactly. I can’t wait to explain that to her.”
“They weren’t even married at the time of the crime.”
“I’ll tell her that too. Where are you?”
“Glendale.”
“Glendale — good, you’re close. We’re heading to Van Nuys now.”
“You got eyes on him?”
“SIS does. They’ll handle the arrest. Can you meet up?”
“Yeah, where?”
“The house is on Vesper about a block from Van Nuys Division. We’re staging at the station.”
“See you there.”
